ADDRESS 


ON THE 

Duties of the Educated Citizen, 

BY 


THE HON. THOMAS N. McCARTER. 




















« 
































* • ' 












. . 




























































A D DRESS 


DELIVERED BEFORE THE 


AMERICAN WHIG 


Cliosophic Societies 


OF THE 


COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY, 


AT PRINCETON, JUNE 23D, 1868, 


THE HON. THOMAS N. McCARTER. 


PHILADELPHIA: 

M’Calla & Stavely, Printers, 237-9 Dock Street. 
1868. 



T/C/77/ 

• M* 


,JUN 40 1916 


EXTRACT FROM THE MINUTES OF 

THE AMERICAN WHIG SOCIETY. 


“ Resolved, That the thanks of the American Whig Society be pre¬ 
sented to the Hon. T. N. McCarter, of N. J., for his able and eloquent 
address delivered this day before the Literary Societies; and that a Com¬ 
mittee be appointed to request a copy for publication.” 

Henry C. Cameron, ) 

J. Quincy A. Fullerton, >• Committee. 
William S. Little, ) 

Whig Hall, June 23, 1868. 


EXTRACT FROM THE MINUTES OF 

THE CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY. 


“ Resolved, That the thanks of this Society be tendered to the Hon. 
T. N. McCarter, for his able and interesting alddress of to-day, and that 
a Committee of three be appointed to request a copy of the same for 
publication.” 

Henry W. Green, ^ 

Samuel H. Pennington, >• Committee. 
Chas. A. Aikin, ) 


Clio. Hall, June 23, 1868. 






ADDRESS. 


The revolution of another year has brought us 
once more together, to engage in the exercises 
and partake of the literary festivities which attend 
that most interesting occasion, a College Com¬ 
mencement,—an occasion which every alumnus 
hails with delight, as affording him an opportuni¬ 
ty to revisit those scenes of his youth with which 
is connected more of romance than any other por¬ 
tion of his life,—to renew old and long-severed 
acquaintances,—to clasp by the hand the friends of 
his boyhood, who perchance have, like himself, 
also come hither, after many years of absence,—to 
renew his pledges of devotion to that cherishing 
mother to whose fostering care he owes whatever 
of intellectual stature he may have attained, and 
to exchange words of kind greeting and friendly 
counsel with those who on the morrow shall step 
forth to engage for the first time in the actual 
battle of life. 

To us who have come up hither from the busy 




6 


en g a g ements °f the world, all covered with the 
dust and smoke of life's conflict, as we tread these 
walks so peaceful and quiet, and so much in con¬ 
trast with the scenes of tumult and confusion from 
which we have but just emerged,—as we trav¬ 
erse the grand old halls and walk again among 
the pleasant seats of learning, the whole place be¬ 
comes invested with a sort of religious interest, 
and a reverence akin to that which pilgrims feel, 
when after long separation they revisit the scenes 
of their early worship, fills our hearts. 

To us on such occasions as this, these pleasant 
places become indeed 

** Pilgrim shrines. 

Shrines to no code or creed confined : 

The Delphian vales, the Palestines, 

The Meccas of the mind.” 

Of all the associations which are awakened bv 

j 

a commencement occasion, none are more agree¬ 
able than those connected with the two literary 
societies in whose behalf we are on this day as¬ 
sembled. The exercises of these societies, as we 
behold them again after a protracted absence, 
bring back to our minds the past with more of 
interest than any other portions of the college ex¬ 
perience. 

These society halls, for whose prosperity we 
manifested so much zeal, and from whose instruc¬ 
tion we derived so much profit, made an impres¬ 
sion on our youthful minds which never can be 


7 


effaced. They are the forum on which the stu¬ 
dent first tries his own intellectual powers, without 
the guiding hand of tutor or professor. They are 
the arenas on which are fought those mimic con¬ 
flicts which so closely resemble the engagements 
of actual life. They beget in the student those 
habits of self-reliance which he will so much need 
in his future intercourse with the world. They 
serve to counteract that tendency to scholastic re¬ 
tirement which results from the rigid discipline 
of the college curriculum, and they aid to develop 
the mere student and scholar into the man of busi¬ 
ness and the citizen. 

As the student in a country like ours, as soon 
as he graduates from college, necessarily becomes, 
in most cases, more of a citizen and a business 
man than a mere scholar or student, and is com¬ 
pelled at once to discharge the duties and meet 
the responsibilities of citizenship, an occasion like 
the present serves naturally to lead to a considera¬ 
tion of some of the relations which the educated 
men of this country bear to the government under 
which their lot is cast. 

In a government which is theoretically based 
upon the perfect equality of all men before the 
law, we are prone to lose sight of the fact that 
such equality exists more in name than in reality— 
that the very name and essence of government 
implies restraint, authority, coercion, brought 
about by the exercise of power; that while all 


8 


men are equal before the law, all are subject to 
the law, and that this law is not a mere abstrac¬ 
tion, but is a visible, tangible power, which con¬ 
trols fleets and armies, establishes courts of justice, 
asserts rights, redresses wrongs, inflicts punish¬ 
ments, and makes itself manifest in all the depart¬ 
ments of business and all the varied relations of 
life. Thus it is that even beneath the dead level 
of a perfect democracy there lurks somewhere a 
secret influence, by which the powers of govern¬ 
ment are wielded as effectually as by the will of 
an emperor or autocrat. 

This subtle influence lies back of all forms of 
government, for while in a popular and represen¬ 
tative government we are accustomed to say that 
the will of the people rules, and that the voice of 
the majority is all-powerful, yet the truth is that 
majorities only prescribe the forms by which this 
power shall be made manifest, and choose the in¬ 
struments by which its will is made effectual. 
Majorities do not create or originate the real 
power of a government, but at most direct its 
aims, and establish the channels through which it 
shall flow. 

What, then, is the nature of this power, and 
where is its seat ? Beyond all question, its nature 
is intellectual, and it has its seat in the trained and 
cultivated minds of those men who, acting upon 
the masses of the people, transmit their own wills 
through the channels which majorities establish, 


9 


and accomplish their own purposes by the skilful 
use of those instruments which the popular will 
has selected. It follows from this that the perfec¬ 
tion of a government depends not so much upon 
the forms through which it is administered as on 
the nature and character of the intellect that con¬ 
trols and directs it. A government the most ab¬ 
solute and despotic in its form, if administered by 
a wise and virtuous ruler, is better for the subjects 
of it than the most perfect republic which has 
been permitted to fall into the hands of the igno¬ 
rant, the vicious, and corrupt. It matters not 
what material evidences of prosperity and power 
a government may possess, if its intellectual man¬ 
agement is imbecile or incompetent,—no collec¬ 
tion of physical means or instruments of power, 
no well-equipped armies or gallant navies, no fer¬ 
tility of soil or wealth of resources will avail to 
perpetuate its influence, will serve to make it use¬ 
ful to its own citizens, or command for it the re¬ 
spect of the other nations of the earth. 

The government established by Oliver Crom¬ 
well on the ruins of the British monarchy seemed 
to have all the outward evidences of internal 
strength, and to possess inherent power to perpet¬ 
uate itself indefinitely. Yet how soon after the 
inspiration of his genius was withdrawn did it 
crumble to pieces, and the nation relapse into 
those ancient ways from which he seemed to have 
permanently redeemed it! 


IO 


The Republics of Mexico and South America, 
with constitutions fashioned closely after that of 
our own beloved country, would seem to possess 
all the elements to which a superficial observer 
would attribute our own prosperity and wonderful 
growth. And yet how signally they demonstrate 
the inadequacy of the most perfect form of gov¬ 
ernment to promote the happiness and advance the 
prosperity of a people, without wisdom or virtue 
in those who administer their affairs and control 
their destinies! 

Yet we in this country have become so accus¬ 
tomed to admire and laud the mere form of our 
government, that we have come to look upon it 
as a self-acting agency, which cannot move in a 
wrong direction, and which, left to itself, will of 
its own inherent goodness accomplish the greatest 
good of the greatest n'timber; and we have erro¬ 
neously attributed to the perfection of a mere sys¬ 
tem that unexampled prosperity which has resulted 
in part from our physical advantages, and very 
greatly from the wisdom and virtue of those noble 
men who started us in our astonishing career of 
prosperity and power. The result of this super¬ 
ficial view of the workings of our own system has 
been to beget, even among the most intelligent 
classes, an optimism which, leading men to the 
belief that no amount of bad management can 
permanently damage the working of so perfect a 
machine, has brought us to the verge of destruc- 


tion in the past, and is fraught with the greatest 
peril for the future. 

I would by no means be understood to advocate 
the doctrine that forms of government are imma¬ 
terial, or to adopt the sentiment expressed by Pope 
in the familiar couplet: 

“ For forms of government let fools contest. 

That which is best administered is best.” 

On the contrary, I hold that, other things being 
equal, that system of government is best adapted 
to promote the true happiness and prosperity of a 
people which admits the greatest number of the 
wise and good to a participation in its affairs. 

Such a system is that under which it is our hap¬ 
piness to live; and if it has not seemed to answer 
fully the ends for which it was established, its fail¬ 
ure is due not so much to defects in the system as 
to the apathy and indifference of those who, best 
qualified to take part in its affairs, have deliberately 
stood aloof from its management, and have failed 
to bestow the influence of their learning and cul¬ 
ture upon the highest human ends to which those 
qualities could be applied. 

This theme, the duties which educated men 
owe to their country, trite as it is, seems to have a 
peculiar importance at this crisis of our country's 
history. 

It is to my mind susceptible of perfect demon¬ 
stration, that the bloody and destructive war 


through which we have just passed could have 
been averted, and the great principles of freedom 
which by it have been established could have been 
as successfully vindicated, had the educated men 
of our country, during all the years in which the 
terrible storm was gathering, sternly applied their 
wisdom to resist the beginnings of the evil, and 
devoted to the preservation of our liberties that 
“ eternal vigilance” by which alone their preser¬ 
vation is possible. The cruel experience of the 
past should teach us that such vigilance is to be 
exercised not only against the encroachments of 
tyranny or the insidious progress of corruption, 
but that it needs to be exerted against our own 
selfish apathy and indifference, our exclusive de¬ 
votion to business, our over-confidence in the per¬ 
fection of our government, and the numberless 
other excuses by which men seek to justify their 
abstinence from a participation in public affairs. 
It may be unwise to indulge in vain regrets over 
the desolations of the past, but it is eminently 
wise to avail ourselves of the experience of the 
past, to guard against a recurrence of like calami¬ 
ties in the future. For when in our country's his¬ 
tory did she so much need the aid and counsel of 
every intelligent citizen as now? When before 
did such tremendous problems press upon us for 
solution as at the present moment ? 

Ten noble commonwealths, but yesterday the 
very garden of our country, inhabited by a proud 


1 3 


and gallant people, and marching forward in a 
career of prosperity without a parallel in any other 
country, are now reduced to a state of temporary 
vassalage by that government which it was once 
their boast that they controlled, and which in a 
frenzy of insane ambition they vainly endeavored 
to destroy. Who shall lift them out of the degra¬ 
dation to which they have been sunk, and restore 
them once more to their true position of perfect 
equality with their sister commonwealths ? Who 
shall supply to that people, thus “peeled and scat¬ 
tered,” the wisdom, intelligence, and statesmanship 
which they so much need, when all their own 
citizens who possess those qualities, and on whom 
such duty would naturally devolve, have been to¬ 
tally disfranchised by that same rebellion which 
has reduced them to their present deplorable con¬ 
dition ? 

Four millions of slaves, but yesterday only a 
little higher in the scale of intelligence than the 
beasts with which they wrought for their com¬ 
mon masters and owners, degraded by two cen¬ 
turies of debasing servitude, have become, not 
gradually, but “in the twinkling of an eye,” 
charged with all the duties and responsibilities of 
citizenship, masters of those of whom they were 
so recently the abject slaves, and admitted to share 
in the government not of themselves alone but ot 
this whole country, of whose wants few of them 
have the slightest conception. Upon whom will 


H 


rest the duty of educating these wards of the na¬ 
tion,—of restraining their excesses, of protecting 
them, as well from the reactionary tendencies sur¬ 
rounding them at home as from the arts of design¬ 
ing demagogues from abroad, and of elevating to 
the ancient standard the average of intelligence 
and virtue, which so great an infusion of ignorance 
and incapacity must necessarily reduce to a lower 
point than it has ever before reached? 

Who shall restore the ancient landmarks, and 
newly define the boundaries of State and Federal 
authority, which the deluge of war has confounded 
and swept away? 

Whose wisdom shall suffice to, elevate our cur¬ 
rency, restore our impaired credit, adjust our crude 
and clumsy system of taxation, and distribute equi¬ 
tably that crushing load of debt now depressing 
every department of industry ? 

Who shall check the insidious progress of cor¬ 
ruption which seems to pervade every fibre of our 
body politic, and rid the land of those foul and 
dangerous reptiles which have infested the soil 
ever since the subsidence of the waters of civil 
strife ? 

These questions, and many others of a similar 
character, springing out of the bloody ordeal ' 
through which we have passed, press themselves 
upon our attention, and demand an answer from 
every true patriot; they appeal with importunate 
earnestness to men of talents and education, to 


T 5 


come forth and assert the rights,—nay more, to 
discharge the duties which belong to them, as 
those best qualified to respond to such demands as 
these. 

It is thus that those of our citizens who have 
enjoyed the benefits of that education which our 
colleges and higher seminaries afford, become 
charged with a sacred trust, which, founded upon 
God-given capacity, is nearly allied to that “ divine 
right” once claimed for kings, to rule the destinies 
of those around them. It is the only “ divine 
right” of government which we can acknowledge 
among men, and its possession raises a reciprocal 
duty, the neglect of which must certainly lead to 
disastrous results. 

For the proper discharge of this duty, it is the 
aim of a college course, and particularly of that 
part of it belonging to your literary societies, to 
qualify the student. 

The seminaries of the present day are not sub¬ 
ject to the reproach which Bacon cast upon the 
universities of his time, of which he asserted that 
“ the studies of men in such places are confined 
and pinned down to certain authors, from which 
if a man happen to differ, he is presently repre¬ 
sented as a disturber and innovator.” 

The adoption of that system of observation and 
induction which Bacon introduced has redeemed 
most modern schools of learning from that bigotry 
and intolerance, so justly rebuked by the great 


philosopher, and which once so greatly hindered 
the advance of scientific and religious truth. Un¬ 
fortunately, the same progress has not been accom¬ 
plished in political discussions. That spirit which 
once applied the rack and thumb-screw to produce 
identity of religious opinion is now invoked to 
stifle inquiry and crush out all freedom of thought 
in party politics, although in so doing men disre¬ 
gard all the teachings of science and all the anal¬ 
ogies of nature. “ How foolish,” said Charles V. 
(in substance), “ to expect all men to think alike, 
when the most cunning workman cannot make 
two watches go together!” Nor is this diversity 
seen alone in the objects of human skill. The 
character which nature stamps on her productions, 
through all their vast gradations, from the smallest 
grain of sand which sparkles on the sea shore, to 
that magnificent system of worlds scattered through 
the fields of space, is that of ceaseless variety. Her 
excelling hand fashions no two objects alike. Not 
only does kind differ from kind and species from 
species, but one individual differs from another. 
The flowers which bloom on the same stem, the 
leaves which rustle on the same bough, beasts, 
which herd together from the impulse of congenial 
sympathy, birds warmed to life in the same nest, 
and infants, twin offspring of the same womb, all 
bear distinctive marks of nature’s exhaustless fer¬ 
tility of design. From the lowest to the highest 
link in her stupendous chain, as far as human 


I 7 


knowledge can extend, this endless diversity is 
seen. Each mote that dances in the sunbeam has 
its own peculiar shape and substance, and “ one 
star differeth from another star in glory.” 

Not less wonderful is the variety which the im¬ 
material world presents. The subtle principle of 
life is as diverse and multiform in its operations as 
the innumerable forms of being on which it acts, 
and in man, that noble attribute which distin¬ 
guishes him from all other organized existences 
is modified by perpetual variations in every indi¬ 
vidual of his race. Mind differs from mind not 
less than feature from feature. In tastes, habits 
of thought, and degrees of intelligence, in mem¬ 
ory, imagination, in the reasoning powers, and in 
every separate faculty of intellect, each human 
being is marked by qualities exclusively his own. 
.Boundless as is the field of knowledge and specu¬ 
lation, there is scarcely a subject that employs the 
thoughts of men on which the opinions of any two 
wholly coincide. They worship at the same altar 
from similarity, not from identity of creed ; they 
unite with the same political organization, not be¬ 
cause it fully accords with the political theory of 
either, but approaches it more nearly than the 
counter systems which others maintain; and they 
draw their swords in the same cause, influenced by 
a general correspondence of opinion, not by pre¬ 
cisely coincident views of national honor and right. 

A consideration of this never-failing and all- 
3 


pervading difference, as well in the material world 
as in the constitution of intellect, would seem suf¬ 
ficient in itself to teach mankind the duty of the 
widest tolerance of opinion, and yet difference of 
opinion has ever been regarded as an occasion for 
the most vehement persecution. The history of 
the past ages is a continual narration of the strife 
of bigotry against the exercise of reason ; and in 
our own days we have the most abundant evidence 
that this bad warfare has not wholly ceased. 

The modified form in which the spirit of the 
dark ages still lingers among men manifests itself 
nowhere so grossly as in the field of political dis¬ 
cussion. If civilization has extinguished the fag¬ 
got and discarded the implements of physical tor¬ 
ture, by means of which mind sought to establish 
its despotism over mind, there are still found in 
the hands of the intolerant other weapons of coer¬ 
cion, by means of which they would retard the 
progress of truth. Abuse is now substituted for 
force ; opprobrious epithets and terms of derision 
are the rack and pincers of modern persecutors. 
On the gravest subjects which affect the welfare 
of mankind, men enter into conflict armed not 
with argument, but with invective. They appeal 
not to reason and justice, but to passion and preju¬ 
dice. They impugn the motives of their antago¬ 
nists in place of combatting their arguments, and 
exercise the baleful arts of a perverted logic to cast 
ridicule and contempt on the persons and cbarac- 


l 9 


ters, instead of temperately demonstrating by in¬ 
fallible methods of proof the unsoundness of their 
positions and the inherent weakness of their cause. 

This hateful spirit poisons all our political con¬ 
tests, degrades the press, dwarfs the intellects of 
our public men, and pervades all the branches of 
political discussion. In a recent and most notable 
instance, it forced its hateful presence into the 
highest temple of justice in the land, and sought 
to lay its unclean hands upon the very horns of the 
altar. 

The prevalence of this bad habit contributes 
more than any other cause to deter men of high 
culture and refined tastes from engaging in politi¬ 
cal discussions, and the absence of those elements 
from such discussions greatly aggravates the evil. 
Why should this be so ? Is there anything in the 
nature of politics that renders them incapable of 
the calmest and most temperate discussion? If 
this noxious plant has been eradicated from the 
fields of science and religion, is there any reason 
why it shall still cumber the ground in the domain 
of political truth ? If arrogant synods no longer 
proclaim arbitrary standards of faith, to which 
men must conform their worship on pain of ana¬ 
themas and persecution; if the astronomer no 
longer fears, while directing his telescope to the 
heavens, that his discoveries will subject him to 
reproach and derision ; if no Galileo is now 
dragged before an inquisitorial tribunal and forced 


20 


to disown the children which his own genuius has 
begotten; if no Bacon at this day is accused of a 
league with the powers of darkness for the fruits 
he derives from a patient investigation of the mys¬ 
teries of nature,—is there any reason why men 
shall not acknowledge in political science that the 
utmost liberty of inquiry furnishes the surest means 
for the ascertainment of truth ; that in all branches 
of learning truth is single and ever consistent with 
itself, and that it is its grand and peculiar charac¬ 
teristic ever to come forth from the crucible of 
discussion, purged from all the dross of error with 
which passion and prejudice may have blended it. 

If such has been the result of the application of 
learning and culture to other departments of human 
inquiry, may we not conclude that the same cause 
will produce a similar result in the department of 
political science ? 

I am not unmindful of the popular fallacy that 
the tendency of a collegiate education is to unfit 
men for a practical participation in public affairs, 
especially in the affairs of a democratic govern¬ 
ment, and to deprive them of all sympathy with 
the progress of true democratic principles. But a 
few notable examples may be cited to prove that 
this is indeed a fallacy. The fact that the Earl 
of Derby produced the best translation of the 
Iliad that our language possesses did not in the 
least detract from the practical ability and wisdom 
with which he at the same time conducted the 


21 


highest affairs of State. The veteran Thiers is not 
the less a fearless opponent of the despotism of 
Louis Napoleon because he is at the same time a 
profound philosopher and learned historian. And 
Napoleon himself wields his wonderful sceptre 
with no less tact and genius because he shines in 
the domain of letters by his life of Julius Caesar. 

The gallant hosts who in England are at this 
moment thundering at the gates of prerogative are 
led to the charge not by ignorant pretenders, the 
Perkin Warbecks and Jack Cades of politics, but 
by a Bright, a*Mill, and a Gladstone,—men whose 
eminence in the domain of letters has kept full 
pace with their prominence in political affairs. 
The whole history of English literature, from its 
earliest dawn to its present noonday splendor, 
abounds in the grandest truths of political philos¬ 
ophy, cheering the heart of the seeker by the 
magic of its immortal eloquence, and in the hap¬ 
piest inspiration of its Heaven-drawn song. The 
poetry of England, in particular, has wonderfully 
contributed to swell the mighty current of demo¬ 
cratic feeling which is now spreading over the 
world, and which promises results so vast for the 
future destiny of the human race. So in France, 
the soul-stirring lyrics of Beranger, although they 
were issued from the prison cell to which arbitrary 
power had consigned their author, electrified the 
French nation, and gained for him a power and 
influence in the State which fully illustrated the 


22 


wisdom of him who declared, “ Let me make the 
songs of a people, and I care not who makes their 
laws.” 

We have but to turn to our own Bancroft, and 
Irving and Motley, for the most signal proof that 
the highest achievements of learning are perfectly 
consistent with the most valuable services in the 
line of patriotic duty ; and it is a well-known fact 
that the senator in our own Congress who is most 
distinguished for learning and scholarship, occu¬ 
pies the most advanced position in that party of 
progress to which he belongs. 

It is undoubtedly true that the tendency of re¬ 
fined and liberal education is to beget in its pos¬ 
sessors a distaste for the political strifes of the 
present day, but that distaste springs more from a 
selfish love of ease and quiet, and a disgust at so 
much that is disagreeable in public life, than from 
any unfitness to grapple with the questions which 
constantly press themselves upon the attention of 
the citizen. 

Our Union never could have been maintained 
if such selfish considerations had restrained the 
patriotism of our martyred brethren, who, casting 
behind them all the comforts and endearments of 
life, voluntarily relinquished the pleasures of home 
and the society of friends, and severed the dearest 
natural ties, that they might lay down their lives 
for its preservation. 

From every battle-field, from every hearth-stone 


2 3 


made desolate by the war, come up silent but elo¬ 
quent voices appealing to us that never again shall 
our indifference to our public duties demand so 
costly a sacrifice of our fellow-citizens. 

The voice of their blood cries out to us from 
the ground, not indeed “ for vengeance against the 
brother hands that shed it,” but it proclaims the 
truth, that beautiful as it is to die for one’s coun¬ 
try, it is far more beautiful to live for it, and that 
life is better spent in a steady and perpetual devo¬ 
tion to our country’s service than to be poured out 
“in one anguished and dying effort” on the field 
of strife ; that it will be all in vain that we erect 
monuments to their memories, or tenderly strew 
flowers on their graves, if we fail henceforth to 
guard with the most jealous care the priceless her¬ 
itage they have bequeathed to us. 

“ It is rather for us,” said President Lincoln at 
Gettysburg, “ to be here dedicated to the great 
task remaining before us, that from these honored 
dead we take increased devotion to that cause for 
which they here gave the last full measure of de¬ 
votion ; that we here highly resolve that the dead 
shall have not died in vain, that the nation shall, 
under God, have a new birth of freedom, and that 
governments of the people, by the people, and for 
the people, shall not perish from the earth.” 

These eloquent words of our lamented President, 
himself the noblest martyr of them all, should sink 
deep into our hearts, and should stir us up to a new 


24 


examination of our duties as citizens, and to a new 
determination to discharge them with fidelity. 

. Politics, rightly considered, are a branch of 
morals. The three divisions of religion, private 
ethics and politics, embrace all the duties of life. 
Human happiness is the single aim of each of these 
three great and comprehensive branches of duty, 
and it may well be questioned whether the obli¬ 
gations imposed by either can be fully performed 
by him who neglects those which the others en¬ 
join. 

If we acknowledge the obligation of that pre¬ 
cept which teaches us to love our neighbor as our¬ 
selves, in what mode can we more effectually show 
its authority over our minds than by taking a firm 
and temperate part in political affairs ? The right 
ordering of a State directly promotes the welfare 
of multitudes of human beings; and it is therefore 
not only the private interest but the Christian duty 
of every individual of those multitudes, strenuously 
to exer.t his just influence in accomplishing so im¬ 
portant a result. 

We can never in this country fully obey the 
Divine injunction to “ render unto Caesar the 
things which are Caesar’s,” if we withhold from 
our favored land the benefit of our talents and 
learning in this hour of her urgent extremity, or 
fail to stamp upon her institutions the “ image 
and superscription” of intelligence and virtue. 

With that duty faithfully performed, we need 


25 


never despair of the Republic. If the educated, 
intelligent, and virtuous among us shall respond 
as promptly and faithfully to the demands of pa¬ 
triotism as they do to those of private ethics, if 
they are as scrupulous to discharge every obliga¬ 
tion which they owe to their fellow-men in the 
department of government as they are to the obli¬ 
gations of religion, or even to the demands of 
business, there would grow up a power which 
would suffice to restrain the violence of faction, 
and a skill which would safely steer the ship 
through all the breakers which lie in her course. 

Then, though folly and madness may seem to 
rule the hour, and the great powers of the State 
may be administered by incapable or even dis¬ 
honest men, this “ power behind the throne, 
greater than the throne itself,” will hold in check 
the excesses of ignorance and vice, and assert for 
itself an authority which the highest officials can 
neither disregard or defy. 

But, on the other hand, if these intelligent and 
cultivated men persistently neglect the discharge 
of these duties ; if they abdicate the power which 
to them rightfully belongs, and permit the influ¬ 
ence of their learning and experience to be sup¬ 
planted by the low cunning of demagogues or the 
corrupt use of money ; if they selfishly declare, as 
they behold their government crumbling to decay, 
under the combined influence of ignorance and 

corruption, that “it will last their time;” if they 

4 


26 


pay no heed to the deluge which threatens to en¬ 
gulf them and their posterity in a common ruin, 
but listlessly relaxing their hold on the sceptre of 
power, suffer it to become 

“-a barren sceptre in their gripe. 

Thence to be wrenched with an unlineal hand. 

No son of theirs succeeding;” 

then will our boasted form of government be as 
powerless to promote the welfare of the people as 
it is now capable, under Providence, of securing 
their utmost happiness. 

Let none fear that the course here recommended 
would tend to build up a privileged class, or found 
an aristocracy of learned men who would have 
nothing in common with the people about them. 
The bond of common intelligence would not be 
sufficient to unite the learned or cultivated classes 
into one society or order distinct from all other 
classes. 

The freedom of the press, the prevalence of 
party divisions, and the other reasons which cause 
men of less pretensions to differ on public ques¬ 
tions, would also divide the more intelligent 
classes, and prevent them from acquiring an ex¬ 
clusiveness inconsistent with democratic institu¬ 
tions. The very fact that they devoted their time 
and talents to the promotion of the public good 
would increase their interest in the affairs of their 
fellow^men, and greatly enlarge the sphere of their 
sympathies. The capacity of such men for useful- 



27 


ness would rapidly increase under the exercise of 
their powers in that direction. If now, when the 
greater imminence of the peril has passed away, 
men would devote their energies to the same end as 
when, during the late war, their voices were heard 
in the columns of the press, at Union meetings, and 
in every other place where they could be of use to 
stimulate the patriotism of the people, who can 
estimate the wonderful results that would be ac¬ 
complished ? 

Think not that the necessity for such patriotic 
action has ceased with the rebellion that called it 
forth. A rebellion is still in progress, not confined 
to a geographical section, nor lifting its horrid 
front and bloody hands in open effort to destroy our 
government, but its secret, insidious influence is 
coursing through the veins of the body politic, and 
if not checked in its career, will bring it to speedy 
destruction. It is the rebellion of corruption against 
purity, of the lawless against the law-abiding, of 
vice against virtue. It is a renewal of that 44 irre¬ 
pressible conflict” between the 44 opposing and en¬ 
during forces” of truth and error, and our recent 
cruel experience has demonstrated the fearful cost 
of permitting error to obtain even a temporary 
advantage in the struggle. Men must choose, 
therefore* whether this rebellion shall be kept in 
check by the powers of the law, vigilantly and 
steadily administered, or whether it shall be al¬ 
lowed to gather strength, until vigilance commit- 


28 


tees or even more violent measures must be re¬ 
sorted to for the public protection. 

To young men collected in our colleges and 
universities, this subject addresses itself with pecu¬ 
liar force, and especially to those who are about to 
graduate and enter upon the business of life. 

They take but a narrow and limited view of their 
duties who look upon the education here acquired 
as for themselves alone, to be enjoyed in the seclu¬ 
sion of the study, or to be applied only to the prose¬ 
cution of business or the acquisition of wealth. 

That noble sentiment:— 

“ Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto,” 

the utterance of a Roman poet, himself an emanci¬ 
pated slave, expresses the very essence of democ¬ 
racy, and although uttered long before the birth of 
our Saviour, breathes the genuine spirit of Chris¬ 
tianity. It teaches that every human being has 
claims upon our human sympathies, and that those 
claims can in no way be so fully met as in the de¬ 
partment of government, which acts directly upon 
the destiny of every human being. 

The importance of the subject also leads to the 
suggestion, which is ventured with great diffidence, 
that more attention should be paid in our colleges 
to that part of education which bears directly upon 
the science of government. The scientific, classic¬ 
al, and literary discipline of the ordinary college 
curriculum is well adapted to prepare the mind of 


2 9 


the student for the elimination of truth in any 
department of learning to which its powers may 
be applied, and considered as merely preparatory 
to an entrance upon one of the learned profes¬ 
sions, seems all that is needed to enable the stu¬ 
dent to engage in the specific studies of either 
one of those professions to which his attention may 
be turned. But while only a portion of our col¬ 
lege graduates enter the learned professions, all at 
once enter upon the duties of citizenship, and it 
would seem to be a necessary preparation for those 
duties that the student be instructed in the teach¬ 
ings of history, the doctrines of political economy, 
in a comparative view of the practical workings of 
the different governments of the civilized nations 
of the earth, and a comprehensive but accurate ac¬ 
quaintance with our own Federal Constitution, and 
the true relations which the several States bear to 
the Central Government. 

If a portion of the College course could be de¬ 
voted to studies of this character, the graduate 
would enter with more confidence upon the dis¬ 
charge of his duties as a citizen, and would have 
less excuse for their systematic neglect. 

But to enable our colleges to engage in such a 
course of instruction, it will be necessary that the 
people awake to the importance of the subject, and 
place in the hands of our literary institutions the 
means of imparting education in political science; 
and as our beloved College of New Jersey is about 


3 ° 


to enter upon an enlarged sphere of usefulness, the 
establishment of a professorship of political science 
may not be unworthy the attention of those whose 
liberality is relied on to advance her in her noble 
career. 

The ever widening field on which the American 
citizen is called to exert his powers demands con¬ 
stantly improving methods of instruction, and a 
more extensive acquaintance with all those facts 
of history and principles of philosophy from which 
the true theory of government is to be deduced. 
If the influence of the American citizen was lim¬ 
ited to the field which our own country affords, it 
would seem to be broad enough to satisfy the as¬ 
pirations of the most ambitious. But complicated 
and intricate as are the questions which are devel¬ 
oped by the wonderful growth and progress of 
our own land, they shrink into insignificance 
when compared with the influence now exerted 
by our institutions on the other nations of the 
earth. 

Our country can no longer live for herself alone 
among the family of nations, but the influence of 
American thought is rapidly leavening the whole 
world. The Government of Great Britain is at 
this moment in the throes of a revolution brought 
about by our own grand example, which, though 
bloodless, bids fair to become as thorough and 
radical as that which severed us from her domin¬ 
ion. Despotic Austria is awakening to a sense of 


3 1 


the antiquated character of her institutions, and is 
abolishing those traditions which hitherto she has 
considered necessary to her safety. And even ef¬ 
fete Turkey, “ the sick man” of history, is begin¬ 
ning to feel in every fibre of his enervated system 
that life-giving influence which only the magic 
of American progress can infuse; while, most 
wonderful of all, ancient China, surrounded as she 
has been with a barrier of prejudice more impene¬ 
trable than her once famous wall, has yielded to 
the influence of American institutions what she 
has hitherto sternly denied to the combined powers 
of the world ; and herself the oldest of nations, 
takes by the hand the youngest of her sisters, and 
selects an American citizen to introduce her into 
full communion with the family of nations. Truly 
may it be said, “ Our field is the world.” 

Upon this magnificent theatre, you who on the 
morro\y shall receive your diplomas from this ven¬ 
erable College are about to enter. It rests with 
you whether you will well perform the several 
parts which will be assigned to you in the great 
drama in which you are so soon to become actors. 

The ancient mother, as she sent her beloved 
boy to the battle-field, gave him a shield, with the 
laconic injunction to return “ with it or on it.” 
So your Alma Mater sends you forth to the battle 
of life clad in the panoply of truth, and armed 
with the weapons to make that truth effective; 
and she bids you, with all a mother’s affection, 

V • 


3 2 

“ Suffer them not to rust in inglorious idleness. 
Cast them not away in a cowardly flight from the 
duties and responsibilities you will encounter. 
Quit yourselves like men. Stand up for the cause 
of truth, right, and good government, and thus 
become a blessing to your fellow-citizens and an 
ornament and pride to this beloved institution, 
whose anniversary we this day celebrate.” 






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